Hallow Even By Carrie Ward Lyon From the book Halloween published 1933

The autumn wind awakes and calls aloud; Piping a sweet, a long forgotten tune; The night has bared her beauty to the moon; Casting aside each softly clinging cloud, She walks in majesty, pale, starry-browed, With unshod feet upon the silver dune. Through witchèd wood she draws the laughing loon, And dolphins to the wave in leaping crowd.

In the green valley of lost yesterday, Safe from the hunter, wild deer frolicking With lambs and little children, dance and sing. To the eternal Beauty caught away, We too a vision of the truth are given, Sans preacher and sans book, on Hallow Even.

G'day/hello,Hi.... Samhane......31st oct..Dad's Birthday. Well, It would have been had he still been with us. He (dad/Alan/Forsh) once played with the Idea of calling himself Sam Hane, as a stage name, and I, for my part, copy write using the name "Samhanesson Music"....Nice touch, or what? Have a FRIGHTFULLY good evening!

Merry Samhain, happy All Hallows and a joyous All Saints. Oh yeah. Happy Birthday to Skeptic tomorrow. Thank the Gods he wasn't a Halloween baby. He's hard enough to deal with as it is. As he is fond of saying,"I try."

Happy Holidays all around!! And for the literary crowd, if you count back nine months from July 31 (Harry Potter's birthday), you'll find that he was (literarily if not literally) conceived on Halloween. Mary (whose daughter's birthday is July 31)

I receive my first degree initiation from my coven this evening! (How very witchy to do it on Samhain).

I was initiated into the magical order last Yule, and now I do the Wicca side of things. Should be great; we have very Samhain weather in Boston this day..the kiddies will need rain ponchos over their costumes...

enjoy your day, all, bobbing for apples, honoring the ancestors, quaffing a whisky before the fire, munching candy, what have you...

Thought I'd post this amazing poem by Terri Windling. It's a bit long, but really worth it, and a great piece for Samhain.

Incidentally, her web page is also amazing. I don't have the URL at hand, but I think it's www.endicott.org or something of that type. It's called The Endicott Studio.

Molly

***

An Invocation

by Terri Windling

Go by coombe, by candlelight, by moonlight, starlight, stepping stone, and step o'er bracken, branches, briars, and go tonight, and go alone, go by water, go by willow, go by ivy, oak and ash, and rowan berries red as blood, and bread crumbs, stones, to mark the path; find the way by water's whisper, water rising from a womb of granite, peat, of summer heat, to slake your thirst and fill the coombe and tumble over moss and stone and feed the roots of ancient trees and call to you: go, now, tonight, by water, earth, phyllomancy, by candle flame, by spirit-name, by spells, by portents, myth and song, by drum beat, heart beat, earth pulsing beneath your feet, calling you home, calling you back, calling you through the water, wood, the waste, the wild, the hills where Dartmoor ponies pass, and black-faced sheep, a spectral child, a fox with pale unnatural eyes, an owl, a badger, ghostly deer with horns of star light, candle light to guide the way, to lead you here, to lead you to the one who waits, who sits and waits upon the tor, he waits and watches, wondering if you're the one he's waiting for; he waits by dawn, by dusk, by dark, by sun, by rain, by day, by night, his hair as black as ravens' wings, his eyes of amber, skin milk white, his skin tattooed with spiral lines beneath a mask of wood and leaves and polished stone and sun-bleached bone, beneath a shirt of spiders' weave, his wrists weighted with silver bands and copper braids tarnished to green, he waits for you, unknown and yet familiar from forgotten dreams; you dream and stir upon your bed and toss and turn among the sheets, the wind taps at the window glass and water tumbles through the leat and through the garden, through the wood, and over moss and over stone and tells you: go, by candle light, and go tonight, and go alone; he's sent you dreams, he's left you signs, he's left you feathers, beads and runes, so go, tonight, by candle light, by ash and oak, by wood, by coombe.

Damn! That wasn't supposed to be prose. (Although, I admit, it actually reads really interestingly...) I won't try posting it again. You can find it in its original verse form on her web page, or I can email it to you if you're interested. :PPP

I knew it! Today was pure Hell...all photos came out horrible, and I HATE PEOPLE! I want to be recluse, and never have to talk to anyone anymore! Favorite day? My family's always treated it as the stupidest day of the year.

Bright blessings to all of you. This is a night of sweet sorrow and reflection for me as I think upon those dear ones who have passed on....too many family and friends who have made me who I am and who ,I hope, are proud of my efforts on this plane.This is the time of year when I reflect on what I have done well and what I regret and what I hope to accomplish next year.

Nice thoughts, Morticia, thanks for the *grounding*, I am sure I needed the reminding! *smile*

Hollowfox, it was a cartoon which WyoWoman sent me, which I forwarded on to those for whom I have email addies in my email addy book. It says, "What happens to pumpkins that drink too much" and has a picture of a jack-o-lantern, with a very big mouth in the shape of an "O" and all of the pumpkin innards are coming out of the mouth, as though it's been drunk and sicked up. Well, it's a lot funnier in pictures! If anyone wants a copy, PM your email and I'd be happy to send it.

Morty, YES and so apropos.. "we know who we are and where we come from the march of our blood has brought us here and to them respect and dues... Peg... BBs and hugs.... the fire glows bright to welcome the weary traveller, home at last.. "who will unlock that which is open who will still the sea? who will gather the snow of summer? who makes the Ocean free?" sorry for the double post but the first version didnt post complete...

Little things have been going wierd today, and the hairs on the back of my neck are uneasy. Aside from that, I'm having a great day. I started to make some bean soup, and it completely burned. I guess the spirits were hungry.

Don't know if I want to do any sort of magick tonight, or just eat my supper and go to bed early.

BTW, I was introduced to Wicca at Samhain 4 years ago. (Or was it 5 years...?)

Blessed be. It has been a rather odd day, all right. The fax machine died and the UPS shipper lost the waybill pouch for a big shipment that went out yesterday, so I coudn't fax them the details from home, but had to do so at a local computer store, and so on...

Nothing serious, though.

Another turning of Nature's great wheel...I wish you all well at this time of looking within.

Thanks all for boosting my Spirits! I have to wait for the Thursday Drum and Journey circle to honor the day. We'll be journeying to the Ancestors. Tonight I'm solitary (except for familiars). Witch is good too, in its way.

Blessings on the new year... and all those on both sides of the veil...

Mollificent, thanks for posting one of my favorite poems. Terri Windling and her website rule! I tried to leave a "blue clicky thing" for her site once upon a time. Just not high-tech enough yet. Ironically, it was her site that introduced me to Mudcat. Anyway, it's http://www.endicott-studio.com/ Happy Halloween/Samhain to all here

While trying to learn more about Samhain, I ran across this interesting site belonging to the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. This information seems to be factual whereas a lot of stuff related to Samhain on the internet ranges from questionable to downright flaky, as this site itself explains.